those notes? Where did you find those pamphlets?
How did they come to you?"

"Well, that would be hard to say. Those volumes of pamphlets have been
in the store many years, and I have often tried to find a purchaser for
them. They must have come down from the times of the Restoration. I
wouldn't wonder if they were as old as Cromwell's day. There is much
about Banbury in them, and old Lord Halifax."

"Old Lord Halifax!" said Franklin in surprise, walking about with a
far-away look in his face again and his hands behind him. "I did not
find that name in the volume that I took home. I had an uncle who
received favors from old Lord Halifax."

"You did, hey? Where did he live?"

"In Ecton, or in Nottingham."

"Now, that is curious. It may be that he made the library of pamphlets."

"No, no; if he had, he would never have sold them. He was a well-to-do
man. But you have not answered my questions as to how the library of
pamphlets came to you."

"I can't. I found them here when I took charge of the store. My wife's
father, as I said, used to keep the store. He died suddenly in old age,
and left the store to my wife. He had made a better living than I out of
my business. So I took the store. I found the books here. I do not know
where my father-in-law obtained them. It was his business to buy rare
books, and then find a way to some antiquarian of means who might want
them. The owner's name was not left in these books. I have looked for it
many times. But there are names of Nottingham people there, and when old
Lord Halifax used to visit London I tried to interest him in them, but
he did not care to buy them."

"Father Humphrey, what was your wife's father's name?"

"His name was Axel, sir. He was a good man, sir. He attended the
conventicles, sir, and became a Brownite, sir, and----"

Was the American gentleman going daft again?

He stopped at the name of _Axel_, and lifted his brows. He turned
around, and bowed over with a look of intense interest.

"Did you say Axel, Father Humphrey?"

"Axel, your honor. Axel. I once heard him say that several of these
pamphlets were suppressed after the Restoration, and that they were rare
and valuable. I heard him say that they would be useful to a historian,
sir."

"I will pay you for the books, and you may hold them in trust for me.
They will be sent for some day, or it may be that I will call for them
myself. My uncle owned those books. It would have been the dearest th